The rapid increase in the number of network-enabled devices and sensors deployed in physical environments is changing communication networks. It is predicted that within the next decade billions of devices will generate a myriad of real world data for many applications and services by service providers in a variety of areas such as smart grids, smart homes, e-health, automotive, transport, logistics, and environmental monitoring. The related technologies and solutions that enable integration of real world data and services into the current information networking technologies are often described under the umbrella terms of the Internet of things (IoT) or machine-to-machine (M2M) communications. Because of the large amount of data created by devices there is a need for an efficient way to identify and query this data.
FIG. 1 illustrates an example patient monitoring application that may be provided by a patient's hospital or rehabilitation center using compact biomedical wireless sensor motes that use an actuator as an aggregation point. The actuator transmits data to the network. These small wearable resource constrained devices are examples of M2M devices that may be deployed on a patient to continuously monitor vital signs such as blood pressure and flow, core temperature, oxygen saturation, motion, heart rate, hearing, and vision, among other things. Various kinds of M2M data collected by the M2M devices may be used by the patient's doctor, personal trainer (e.g. from 24 hour fitness), and/or an ambulance service, as depicted in FIG. 1. In order to enable the doctor, personal trainer, and the ambulance service to use the data generated from those M2M device, the semantics of those resources need to be available too. The semantics provide a descriptive definition of the data such that the format and structure of the data can be understood (i.e., the semantics provide meaning for the data).
However, current M2M systems such as the ETSI M2M Architecture described in Draft ETSI TS 102 690 and TS 102 921, do not define mechanisms to support semantics (e.g., data stored within ETSI M2M defined container resources do not have any semantic information that can be stored along with it). As a result, devices and applications need to agree beforehand on a common definition of the exchanged containers as well as on the contained data. This makes re-use of M2M data across different applications difficult in current M2M systems
The semantics concept is commonly known in the area of Semantics Web, which is a collaborative movement led by the international standards body known as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The standard promotes common data formats on the World Wide Web. By encouraging the inclusion of semantic content in web pages, the Semantic Web aims at converting the current web dominated by unstructured and semi-structured documents into a “web of data.” The Semantic Web stack builds on the W3C's Resource Description Framework (RDF).
FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a communication system 120 that implements the ETSI M2M architecture defined by ETSI in its TS 102 690. Note that this diagram is used to assist in understanding of the disclosure and is simplified to facilitate description of the subject matter disclosed herein. As shown in FIG. 2, the system 120 may comprise a plurality of network domains, such as network domain 122, network domain 130, network domain 135, and network domain 138. Each network domain may include a network service capability layer (NSCL), such as NSCL 126, NSCL 131, NSCL 136, and NSCL 139. Each NSCL may interface with a respective network application, such as network application 127 and network application 132 in network domain 122 and network domain 130, respectively.
As further shown, a network domain, such as network domain 122, may further comprise one or more devices, such as device 145 (which for example may be one of the M2M devices used in the patient monitoring application of FIG. 1), and one or more gateways, such as gateway 140. In 3GPP parlance, devices and gateways are examples of UEs. As shown, the device 145 may be running a device service capability layer (DSCL) 146 which communicates with the NSCL 126 over the mId reference point defined by the architecture. A device application (DA) 147 may also be running on the device 145, and it may communicate with the DSCL 146 over a dIa reference point. Similarly, the gateway 140 may implement a gateway service capability layer (GSCL) 141 that communicates with the NSCL 126 over the mId reference point. A gateway application (GA) 142 running on the gateway 140 may communicate with the GSCL 141 via the dIa reference point. In general, dIa reference points allow device and gateway applications to communicate with their respective local service capabilities (i.e., service capabilities available at a DSCL or a GSCL, respectively). The mId reference point allows an M2M SCL residing in an M2M Device (e.g., DSCL 146) or an M2M Gateway (e.g., GSCL 141) to communicate with the M2M service capabilities in the network domain (e.g., NSCL 126) and vice versa.
Still referring to FIG. 2, in greater detail, NSCL 126 may be in domain 122 and be configured with network application (NA) 127 on an M2M server platform 125. NA 127 and NSCL 126 may communicate via reference point mIa 128. The mIa reference points may allow an NA to access the M2M service capabilities available from an NSCL in an M2M domain.
Typically, the device 145, gateway 140, and M2M server platform 125 comprise computing devices, such as the devices illustrated in FIG. 26C and FIG. 26D and described below. The NSCL, DSCL, GSCL, NA, GA, and DA entities typically are logical entities that are implemented in the form of software, executing on the underlying device or platform, to perform their respective functions in the system 120.
As further shown in FIG. 2, NSCL 131 may be in domain 130 with NA 132. NA 132 and NSCL 131 may communicate via mIa reference point 133. There could also be an NSCL 136 in network domain 135, and NSCL 139 in network domain 138 mIm reference point 123 may be an inter-domain reference point that allows M2M network nodes in different network domains, such as NSCL 126 in network domain 122, NSCL 131 in network domain 130, NSCL 136 in network domain 135, or NSCL 139 in network domain 138, to communicate with one another. For simplicity herein, the term “M2M server” may be used to indicate a service capability server (SCS), NSCL, application server, NA, or an MTC server. In addition, the term user equipment (UE), as discussed herein, may apply to a GA, GSCL, DA, or DSCL. A UE, as discussed herein, may be considered a mobile station, a fixed or mobile subscriber unit, a pager, a cellular telephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a smartphone, a laptop, a netbook, a personal computer, a wireless sensor or actuator, consumer electronics, and the like. A machine-to-machine services capabilities layer entity as discussed herein may include an M2M server or a UE.
As further background, the Resource Description Framework (RDF) described at http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-concepts/ is a framework for representing information in the Web. RDF is essentially a data-model. Its basic building block is a resource-property-value triple, called a statement. RDF has been given a syntax in XML.
RDF includes the concepts of resources, properties, values, and statements. A resource may be thought of as an object or a “thing.” Resources may be authors, books, publishers, places, people, hotels, rooms, search queries, and the like. The resource has a universal resource identifier (URI). A URI may be a unified resource locator (URL), Web address, or some other kind of unique identifier. The identifier does not necessarily enable access to a resource. URI schemes have been defined for web-locations, but also for such diverse objects as telephone numbers, ISBN numbers, and geographic locations. Properties may be considered special kinds of resources, and describe relations between resources, for example “written by,” “age,” “title,” and the like. Properties in RDF are also identified by URIs and by URLs.
Values may be resources or literals. Literals are atomic values (strings). For example, a resource having a property of “age” can have a literal value of “20.” Statements assert the properties of resources. A statement is a resource-property-value triple, consisting of a resource, a property, and a value. The underlying structure of an expression in RDF is a collection of triples, each consisting of a resource, a property, and a value. Each triple represents a statement of a relationship between the things denoted by the nodes that it links.
RDF is domain-independent, in which no assumptions about a particular domain of use are made. It is up to the users to define their own terminology in a schema language called RDF Schema (RDFS). RDFS defines the vocabulary used in RDF data models. In RDFS we can define the vocabulary, specify which properties apply to which kinds of objects and what values they can take, and describe the relationships between objects.
The core classes defined by W3C are                rdfs:Resource, the class of all resources        rdfs:Class, the class of all classes. The group of individuals that belongs to a class shares the same properties.        rdfs:Literal, the class of all literals (strings)        rdf:Property, the class of all properties.        rdf:Statement, the class of all reified statements        
The core properties defined by W3C are                rdf:type, which relates a resource to its class. The resource is declared to be an instance of that class.        rdfs:subClassOf, which relates a class to one of its super-classes. Instances of a class are instances of its super-class.        rdfs:subPropertyOf, relates a property to one of its super-properties.        rdfs:domain, which specifies the domain of a property P, or specified subjects of the property in the triple.        rdfs:range, which specifies the range of a property P. The class of those resources that may appear as values in a triple with predicate P.        
With the foregoing discussion of M2M systems and the RDF and RDFS as background, the present application is directed to systems and method for semantic support and management in M2M systems.